Christmas brings with it the stress of having to select gifts for everyone in your life. The stress comes with a double measure when you are a married to a loving, dutiful wife and attached to a beautiful mistress. The man with a mistress and a wife looking up to him for a wonderful Christmas always finds himself at a hot spot once every year. So how do you go about selecting the ideal gifts for either of these women? Christmas gifts for mistress and for wife are worlds apart in difference and they must be selected from very different perspectives if you are going to succeed in killing two birds with a single stone (making two women happy in one Christmas).

gifts for mistress and wife

The first thing you need to consider while selecting Christmas gifts for mistress and for wife is their varied interests. Most probably the mistress loves the finer things in life. Luxury and fashion are her middle names. On the other hand the wife would like a little romance at Christmas and something that is going to make her feel appreciated for being the mother of your children and your caregiver. So utilize these different interests while selecting the gifts. Try to find a gift voucher for the mistress so that she can go shopping for herself and get what she wants. That is going to mean some money though. Remember, you are not expected to be mean to a mistress. If you want to keep her then spoil her at Christmas.

The wife is probably exhausted right now since the kids are at home most of the time and she has been all over the place organizing for all the Christmas parties. She needs to rest and feel loved. Before Christmas comes, try to take her out on a weekend – just the two of you. Let her relax and enjoy herself fully. If this is done by the time Christmas comes she will love you enough not to care for a gift. Nevertheless, you will feel guilty for having spent a lot of money buying Christmas gifts for mistress and not to buying some Christmas gifts for wife. So go ahead and think about something that might make her life easy.

Gifts for mistress

Let’s get to the criteria of selecting Christmas gifts for mistress and for wife proper. The following are factors you must consider while selecting the Christmas gifts for mistress:

1. It must be luxurious since mistresses breathe nothing but luxury (think emeralds, gift vouchers, car maybe etc) 2. Do not give her money since she never gets enough of that. Incidentally, it is advisable that you maintain her allowance at the same level and only add a Christmas gift on top. Do not set precedents in varying the allowance! 3. Try to get her into going for a Christmas holiday somewhere away from home. This will give you space to breathe. It will make it possible for you to spend time with the wife and kids during a very important season for the family. You can join her later as soon as you are able to break free from home. 4. Do not let her know what you are buying Christmas gifts for wife or else you will start a comparison game. Do not send her to buy the wife’s gift no matter what happens. 5. Try to be romantic to an extent by buying some exotic garment (lingerie maybe) from an expensive high-end store and have it delivered to her address. Some shoes (think winter boots) will be ideal too, if you know her feet size and preferences.

Christmas gifts for wife

It is time to think about Christmas gifts for wife. The following are ideal considerations that will guide you in buying the perfect Christmas gifts for wife:

1. Think about something that will show how devoted you are to making her live easy (a membership card to the local women’s club, upgrading her old car into something modern, a shopping voucher to a local home appliances vendor etc) 2. Think about a gift that will make her feel beautiful and appreciated for trying to look nice (a feminine dress that helps display her best features, a gift voucher from the finest salon in the area, a gym membership) 3. Think about something she can share with her children (a whole box of chocolates) 4. Think of a gift that appreciates and boosts her housekeeping efforts (interior décor) 5. Think of a gift that appreciates and boosts her culinary skills (a recipe book, kitchen appliance) 6. Do not forget to be a little romantic. Red roses are a must and they should be frequent this Christmas. Squeeze in a dinner date at a fine hotel and tell her how wonderful, lovely and beautiful she is. 7. Whatever you do spend Christmas at home with her and the kids before going off to spend part of the Christmas holidays with the mistress.

True greatness looks it from far. There are some people whose presence is dominating and influencing, in disregard of age or gender. Such was Sorel’s personality, so distinct and powerful, that she became an enemy of all who revolted against the reign of King Charles VII. She rose from a mere court visitor to a royal mistress after one meeting with the king, and the court was never the same again.

The only way to get rid of her was to murder her, which was done after her presence in the court for eight years. Agnes Sorel was born in 1421 at Fromenteau, Touraine in France. By the time she died on 9th February 1450, after a mere 28 years alive, she had impacted on King Charles VII’s court in a way that no royal mistress has ever done in history. Born of a soldier, Jean Soreau and Catherine de Maignelais, Agnes Sorel was a beauty to behold and a brain to marvel at.

Agnes Sorel: a royal mistress

Agnes Sorel first met King Charles VII during a visit to the courts when she was only twenty years old. At that time, she was under the service of the King’s brother-in-law, Rene I of Naples. Her beauty and charisma, her powerful presence, her extremely rare intelligence, her razor-sharp intuitions and her bewitching charm made a lasting impact on the King. Within a week’s time, the King had taken her in as a mistress.

Such was her beauty and extraordinary personality, that her presence radiated and commanded every man in a mile’s perimeter. In fact, so smitten was the King of France, that he gave her the Chateau de Loches to be her private residence, as a gift of acquitance. This was not just a gift, for it was in the Chateau de Loches, where King Charles VII had been persuaded by the legendary Joan of Arc to accept the offer to be crowned the king. It was therefore the automate act of surrender, to give it to Sorel. And still Agnes Sorel was not yet done, not yet begun actually.

Within a month’s stay, her presence in the royal court was soon felt. The King had been in a protracted acute depression, before she came around. She changed this and brought the king around to boyish adventure, casual talk, romantic music, and most of all enthusiastic duty. Sorel’s influence as a royal mistress became a household tale. To add to her extraordinary beauty and powerful personality, Sorel had an extravagant taste in things exotic. She insisted on finesse and nothing but. This eventually earned her many powerful enemies at the court, but she was undeterred. The royal mistress bore three daughters to the King, Charlotte, Marie de Valois and Jeanne de France. Charlotte’s son, Louis de Breze, would eventually marry Diane de Poitiers, the reputed mistress of King Henry II.

She was however feared and respected given her uncanny ability to impress the King at all times and influence not only his decisions, but his very thinking. Her intelligence and proactivity was a tool she never shied from using, to the detriment of any force raised against her. However, in 1450, while she was pregnant with her fourth child, Agnes Sorel journeyed from the court in Chinon, to join Charles during the midwinter campaign of 1450 at Jumieges. Again, Sorel’s influence had been noted, for the King had expressly requested her presence for moral support. While there, the royal mistress suddenly fell ill and she eventually died on 9 February. The 28 year-old royal mistress left a scar in the kingdom, with the King heavily mourning her for months. As a relief however, the King took Antoinette de Maignelais, Sorel’s cousin as the last mistress until the time of his death.

French Royalty

Preliminary causes of her death were given as dysentery, but later studies by scientists concluded that the royal mistress, Agnes Sorel died from mercury poisoning, which made it clear that she had been murdered. Although other theories have been propounded without prove, it is widely believed that the future King Louis XI, Charles’ libelous and often revolting son, had ordered Agnes Sorel poisoned so as to eliminate what he considered undue influence over a king of France. Having won her a gold medal already, Sorel’s influence would finally lead to her death. Such was the fear she instilled in those that she met and interacted.

What might be remembered of her was not her beauty, her charm, her royalty and any other trivial, but her influence on French royalty. What could she have achieved if she had been let to live her life to term? That will always be a question to wonder about, especially knowing how much she attained in eight years as a royal mistress.

Madame de Poitiers, born on 3rd September 1499, is among the most intriguing figures of French history. For a decade she ruled France alongside King Henri II as a royal mistress. Not only was she very beautiful and wealthy, but in her days, Diane de Poitiers had a lasting impact on the royalty of France during the French Renaissance. Her story is one of the most famous love triangles that were encrypted with royal fame, having smitten the heart of the prince to bits. In France, her love triangle story is told in tales of exemplary romance and of daring rivalry.

The royal mistress was a bold and inspiring woman. In fact, today she is often regarded as a role model, a heroine preceding the modern woman. The simple way of describing Diane de Poitiers is, if she had lived in this twenty-first century, there is no doubt that she would have put up a popular website. She had class and pomp, boldness and courage, elegance and beauty, and a daring spirit and funfair to boot. For instance, how her royal fame begun shows how opportunistic and liberal she was. When Queen Claude, the official wife of King Francois I died, Diane de Poitiers, a lady in waiting at that time, managed her grandest social coup when she was put in charge of the courts’ royal nursery.

Diane de poitiers: a royal mistress

This was in around July, 1524, and Diane de Poitiers met the five year old Prince Henri. She came into his life as a mother figure and earned his absolute love. The following year, 1525, King Francois lost in the battle of Pavia and was taken hostage by Emperor Charles V. The king could only be granted freedom if his two eldest sons, Henri and the Dauphin, were taken captive. As the two princes aged below nine years were escorted to Spain, the French entourage included Diane de Poitiers as she tried to comfort young Henri, terrified by the prospects of living as a captive in enemy land.

When Henri returned home from exile two years later, he sought for comfort from Diane and not his own father. Actually the whole summer and part of fall in 1530, the Dauphin and Henri lived with Diane and Louis de Breze, her husband, at their chateaux, Anet. The boyish adoration with which Henri loved Diane, at the age of twelve and thirteen, was phenomenal. He wore green and white colors that spring during his jousting tournament, to honor Diane, for those were her favorite colors. The royal fame of Diane was rising as the prince blossomed. Francis I allowed Diane to be Henri’s mentor in courtly manners. When Francis’s new wife, Eleanor was crowned queen in 1531, people saluted the queen as Henri saluted Diane.

That same year however, Louis de Breze died, leaving Diane de Poitiers, a widow. Louis had served the court of King Francis I by virtue of having been the grandson of King Charles VII. Her survival at the French court was endangered, and she knew it as well. She was very wealthy at that time coupled with a majestic beauty. She also realized that she needed a protector against her powerful enemies in the court, such as Anne de Pisseleu, the mistress of François I. Her royal fame was now in jeopardy. Henri was only 14 years old at that time but he made known his devotion to protect the widow from any force. They had not yet become lovers but the foundation of the single most powerful love story of all the Renaissance period had been laid by this innocent but chivalrous admiration. Diane was actually able to have her fierce opponent, Anne de Pisseleu exiled, a few years later.

As was becoming of the prince, Henri married Catherine de Medici, a daughter of an upstart Florentine merchant in 1533, a quiet and rather plain faced girl who could never hope to compare with the lovely goddess, Diane de Poitiers. Henri saw to it that Diane played a very important role in their marriage. Diane oversaw the household running, nursed the royal children and generally run the family from top to bottom, with Henri’s admiration. Although Catherine observed it all in casual stare, smiled through it all, she was preparing venom, to strike at the opportune hour, when the royal fame of her kin, Diane de Poitiers, could not save her.

A contemporary Diane de Poitiers

But by 1538, Diane and Henri were lovers and a French folklore. It is usually said that Diane de Poitiers learned her mischievous boldness and strong personality from Anne de Beaujeu, the strong willed daughter of Louis XI, who defended the French regency stiffly, in her brother’s minority. This is where Diane spent her young years before she went on to marry 54-year old Louis de Breze, at age 15. By the time she died, on 25 April 1566 at the age of 66, the noblewoman had reigned in royal fame through the two courts of Francis I and Henri II. Her consistent and adamant stature, defying all odds to become a royal mistress of a King, 20 years her junior, has earned her a prestigious place in history books.

She was not just a royal mistress, but a shrewd business woman and a scheming lawyer. She fought against the nationalization of her husband’s wealth and multiplied it ten fold. She was a fierce sportswoman and a reputed hunter. Beautiful and well figured, well after her middle age, she was the caption of imagination and splendor. For twenty five years, as their correspondence later showed, Diane remained the most authoritative figure in Henri’s life. Yet she instigated the preservation of the French royal family by forcing Henri to visit the Queen’s bedroom often. Diane served Catherine faithfully, nursing her many times from scarlet fever and educating her eleven children.

The story of Madame de Pompadour is one that inspires and motivates persistence, determination and hope. Her name at birth was Jeanne-Antionette Poisson, a name she attributed to oppressive poverty and social limitations. Some of the cultural practices that have seen the oppression and subordination of women over the centuries and decades were inherited to sons after every generation. Yet amid this tirade, there were few women who stood up to the status quo, defied the odds and stood as pilgrims of women liberation. Such was the personality and achievement of Jeanne-Antionette Poisson.

In the 18th century, a girl child was born into the low class entity of the Rue de Clery, with massive limitations all around her. She was born on 29th December 1721 to Francois Poisson, who at that time was a steward for wealthy Paris brokers. The father was soon to leave the country with the law on his heels, after a back market adventure that went wrong. The mother, Louise Madeline de la Motte, had to raise the family alone, in great hardship. At age eleven, Jeanne-Antionette Poisson was taken to a fortune teller by her mother, and it is here that she learnt that she would become a king’s mistress.

Madame de Pompadour

Nicknamed Reinette (little queen), at the time, Jeanne-Antionette Poisson was determined to be more than just a mistress. In the coming years, she eventually rose, tore through the veil of her low class, bargained a new class status, propelled her destiny, and eventually gained the title of maitresse-en-titre. Louis XV, King of France bestowed on her beyond the measure of a mistress. Her determination had paid, and now her persistent rediscovery, intelligence and wit enabled her to become the most trusted and spoiled King’s mistress in the period 1745 to 1750. For these five years, she earned the right to remain a powerful confidante of the King until she died in 1764. Her twenty years at the court were very influential to French governance.

Among the few things in her childhood that propelled her to greatness was her mother’s insistence on getting her a good education. From the age of eight, she spent four years at Poissy’s Ursuline convent being tutored in basic education, especially the arts. Upon return, her mother hired Jeloitte, a star in Paris opera, to coach Jeanne-Antionette Poisson in voice. At the age of 20, she was ready for marriage and Charles Guillaume le Normant d’Etoiles became her husband in 1741. Her first daughter, Alexandrine, was born in 1744, but her dream remained, her passion was still there, and she knew that her fortunes lay elsewhere.

This is the reason why, soon after the marriage was consummated, she began planning on how to gain the elusive access into the inner circles of the high class. It was easy for her to get into entertainment with her voice. Her name became known all over Paris, with such clientele as Voltaire and Montesquieu. From the recess of her chateau d’Etoiles, she gained fame until the King himself desired to hear her sing. She was getting near her destiny as Madame de Pompadour.

The Duchess de Chateauroux died in 1744, and the King sent for her. It was after the burial that Jeanne-Antionette Poisson performed at a masked Yew Ball with the King as part of the audience. She had made such an impression to King Louis XV that soon after he ordered that she be given a room in the palace and be taught the court etiquette. On 15th September 1745, she sought legal separation from her husband and became a free bird. That would only take days, since the King took the opportunity and granted her the title of the King’s official Mistress, maitresse-en-titre. She was now officially, Madame de Pompadour, the King’s mistress.

She took to the court as the proverbial duck to water. Very modest in character and always ready to win positive approval, she was never intimidated by the majority of the court’s populace who hated her by virtue of a bourgeoisie background. But she found her way to the King’s heart, using very successful ways of perpetually amusing and entertaining him. She actually launched Theatre des Petits Cabinets to entertain the King, totaling to a hundred and twenty-two theatrical performances by the time she retired from theater. She was especially fond of intimate parties and dinners, specifically organized by her for the King, to keep him riveting.

A Mistress Like No Other

Besides being the King’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour earned praise for being a patron of literature and the arts. She collected a massive library of books besides being extremely successful in her own artistic creations. Her love for new buildings and fashionable decorative arts gave rise to the fashion label ‘Pompadour style.’ She acquired such majestic mansions as the Hotel d’Evreux, and planned the building of Petit Trianon and Compeigne palaces. Artists, sculptures and architects, recognize her contribution and are amazed at her artistic genius, even to date.

When she could no longer meet her lover’s conjugal demands, she moved on in 1750. But instead of breaking the relationship, she modified it to become a lasting mutual friendship. In this role she played a very dominant and influential part in the government and politics of the French ruling class. In recognition of this, the King made her a Duchess on 12th October 1752. This was the single greatest favor a King’s mistress could merit. She was a wielding force of